This Ice Cream Bar Puts a Fresh Twist on Magic Shells

At Wiz Bang Bar in Portland, Oregon, ice cream is anything but conventional. The Pine Street Market-based shop, run by the people behind Portland-famous Salt & Straw, is serving up unique soft-serve flavors, layered with non traditional toppings and incorporated into avant-garde sundae concoctions. But what they’re most known for is their magic-shell dips -- a sweet syrup-like topping that instantly hardens when poured onto something cold -- which come in a variety of anything but your average run-of-the-mill flavors, like Oregon black raspberry and gray chocolate and matcha.

“We’re one of the first companies in the world to create a magic shell out of fresh berries,” explains Head Ice Cream Maker Tyler Malek. “This level of innovation and creating that nostalgia factor, but also doing it in a really hyper-innovative way, was the exact reason we opened up Wiz Bang.”

Wiz Bang’s most popular offering is the Rocky Road Magic Cone, which is more or less a sundae plated in a cone. A black cocoa cone -- similar to the taste and texture of an Oreo -- is stuffed with chocolate soft serve, pillowy pipings of marshmallow fluff, and candied hazelnuts, then drizzled with a chocolate Magic shell.

Along with regular soft-serve cones, Wiz Bang also offers a strawberry shortcake sundae, made with Pine State biscuits, vanilla custard soft serve, and strawberry balsamic compote.

Check out the video above to see dessert magic in action.

Sign up here for our daily PDX email and be the first to get all the food/drink/fun Portland has to offer.

Amy Schulman is an Editorial Assistant at Thrillist who spends most days wondering when she’ll eat ice cream next. Follow her on Instagram.